Threadneedle

by Cari Thomas

  After that, all Anna could think about was the third-floor room. As she polished the silverware for Christmas – she thought about it. As she stirred chutneys for Aunt’s gift collection and smiled sweetly at Aunt – she thought about it. As she hoovered the carpets and stood, vacuum in hand, staring up at the staircase to the third floor – she realized it had consumed her mind. She listened to Aunt going up there at night until she could take the questions no longer. Only one thing had the answer.

  One day, after waving Aunt off to work, Anna stood in the hallway and glared at the key on the rack. Aunt’s key. She reached for it hesitantly. The blade immediately began to morph and change, never fixing on one state. Anna wailed in frustration. She put it back knowing that it would not work but marched upstairs anyway, only slowing when she reached the stifling quiet of the third-floor staircase.

  She felt for her Knotted Cord and tied her dread away. I shouldn’t be doing this. I have to do this. She carried on up the narrow staircase, winding around at the top to the third-floor landing; all was quiet, all was dark, the door before her plain and ordinary. In her imaginings it was bigger – looming – locked with bolts and chains like the lair of a giant. But in truth the only thing that stopped her getting inside was the small keyhole by the handle.

  She moved closer and studied the handle – there was a mark on it, only faint but the colour was distinct. Dark red. Blood? Why would Aunt have blood on her hands? Anna tried to turn it but the door seemed to shudder against her. Locked.

  Then the handle moved beneath her hand.

  Anna jumped back with a yelp and stared at the handle – it was perfectly still. Am I the one going insane now? She stepped forwards again and put her ear against the door. She was met with nothing but silence.

  She watched the handle for several minutes until her frustration grew too much. She went downstairs and stopped outside Aunt’s room. If the third floor would give her nothing, perhaps there would be something in there that could help. It wasn’t entirely breaking the rules – she sometimes went into Aunt’s room to change the sheets … I could be changing the sheets …

  She stepped inside.

  She searched Aunt’s bedside tables first, moving methodically through each drawer: contact lenses, books, cords, sleep masks, a box of trinkets and old jewellery. Under the bed were drawers containing no more than bed sheets and towels. She opened the wardrobe. It was precisely organized – dresses hung in colour order, jumpers tightly folded, shoes tucked into slots. She opened the drawers in turn – socks, tights, underwear, white and functional, and then … her hand touched silk.

  She opened the drawer wider and there, at the back, was something red. She pulled it out. The bra was all lace, its softness at war with its brash colour. Anna dropped it to the floor with shock as if some wild creature had landed in her hands. She searched the drawer deeper and found a pair of matching pants and then another set – green satin. They didn’t belong. They didn’t belong in this clean and white and lifeless room. She tucked them back into the drawer.

  She’d been hoping to unearth a diary, or photographs, or something that might reveal more about her mother’s life, her parents’ death. She would sooner have expected to find a firearm or a severed limb than provocative lingerie. She couldn’t imagine Aunt’s bony body wearing something so … soft. Why would she even own them? Aunt was vehemently against everything to do with love and love-making; she’d never shown interest in a man in all Anna’s life.

  Perhaps there’s someone at work? Perhaps there was no one at all, the lingerie simply jewelled relics of a past life that Aunt no longer led and Anna had never known. I gave my life up for you. Aunt had said it so many times before. Anna ignored the guilt. Had Aunt given up love for her too? But Aunt hated lust and love and everything in between … doesn’t she?

  Christmas Day was a carbon copy of every other Christmas Day. Sensible gifts (socks and textbooks), a small roast chicken (a turkey was too big), over-boiled vegetables, crackers and soon-forgotten paper hats. In the afternoon they drove to Richmond Park for a walk, watching deer cut through the fading light with antlered silhouettes. Snow had been anticipated but it didn’t come, the sky remaining an obstinate grey. They returned to the house and put on a black and white movie and Aunt laid out a puzzle for them while they watched it. The fire finally crackled but it couldn’t chase the loneliness from the house, the loneliness that comes from the space between two people who have nothing left to say to one another. Two people are not quite a family.

  When Aunt left her room that evening, Anna looked at herself in the mirror, pulling at the skin on her face. It was definitely brighter, and the green of her eyes was too. Even her hair had grown stronger in colour, finding the reds and golds of its old life. Perhaps the tisane was truly working at last. Although she couldn’t pinpoint any sudden change, Anna felt different as well. She hadn’t had any nosebleeds, she wasn’t so hungry all the time, she was sleeping better. There was a growing agitation too, a kind of roving urgency within her which longed for release, but what that was she couldn’t say. It made the silent prison of life with Aunt even harder. It made her need for escape greater.

  She went to close her balcony curtains and stopped. Something was glinting on the floor outside – a package? She opened the doors and picked it up. A gift. It was wrapped in festive paper covered with goats wearing Santa hats. The tag read:

  Merry Christmas, Anna. I thought this book might help along your musical genius. Just put it on the piano and it will capture the notes you are playing. Don’t worry if you go wrong, it will correct itself as you refine the song. It’ll never run out of paper either. Attis x

  Anna almost dropped it in shock. She ran to the edge of the balcony and looked out over the quiet gardens – there was no one to be seen. When did he come? She laughed with sudden delight and went back inside. She sat on her bed and eagerly unwrapped the music book. It had a plain blue front, her name appearing on it in silver script as she held it, making her squeal with excitement. She silenced herself and opened the book, finding empty musical staves, ready for her compositions. It was unexpectedly thoughtful. She hugged it tightly, desperate to run downstairs and try it. Could I …?

  She crept out of her room and tiptoed up the stairs. She stood in the dark hallway and listened until she could make out Aunt’s slow, heavy breathing – she was asleep. No third-floor visitation tonight. Anna made her way down to the living room. She knew it was risky but she would only play gently.

  She sat down at the piano and placed the book in front of her. A frail moonlight webbed its way into the room from the window; the book glowed white, empty as snowfall waiting for footprints. She pressed a key and watched as the note wrote itself upon the stave in a shiver of black script. A treble clef appeared beside it, curved and dark as a cloaked stranger. She let out the first joyful laugh of the day and then clapped her hands over her mouth.

  She began to play then, softly. The book responded, threading the tune through the staves before it flew away into the darkness. The notes were shadows, rising and falling, growing from one another, entwining, as if Anna were sewing the fabric of night itself into the pages. She began to feel something like magic. She stopped playing. The notes broke off – waiting.

  She’d been avoiding it all holidays. Magic. She was taking her tisane daily but hadn’t attempted casting, in case, in case it’s no different …

  She went over to Aunt’s stash of cords and selected a brown one. For focus. She took it back to the piano. She held the cord in her hands and focused on the C key. My Hira is twine and thorn. She formed a Weaver’s Knot – for weaving together – and pulled it tight. Nothing happened. Anna shifted the cord along her hands and focused harder, forming another knot. Come on. My Hira is twine and thorn.

  The piano key remained still.

  She thought about how Effie, Attis and Rowan had talked about their Hiras: sharp as whetstone, strong as fire, nourishing like soil – she tried to embody each
of their descriptions in turn, with no success. A fear gripped at her heart. What if I’ll never be able to do it?

  She grew tired, but refused to go to bed. She sat forming knots along the cord – undoing them, tying them again – drowsy eyes on the keys, trying to feel something until her arm ached and her eyes grew sleepy. Her mind began to wander, drifting like the clouds towards the edges of dreaming. The moonlight lit up the C key and her fingers made a knot in the cord without thinking.

  The sound broke the silence of night. A clear C note.

  Anna wasn’t sure if she’d imagined it. She quickly made another knot in the cord and the sound came again. She did it again and this time watched as the key pressed itself down, as if some invisible finger of night were playing it.

  She could feel something – the steady strength of the cord, the chill of the endless moonlight, the pure sound of the note, the silence between it all. Worlds colliding. Magic, like twine – no, like threads, tying them together, forming a pattern …

  Anna tied the knots more quickly, a small and simple tune playing in response: a melody of knots. She’d never known cord magic to make anything beautiful. She knotted faster – different notes, different rhythms, a travelling octave. Her thoughts broke through. I’m doing it! Magic! I can feel something. As her mind lost focus the music petered out. She could feel the strength of the magic wane and then disappear altogether until the knots were no more than knots once more.

  Anna tried to recall how it had felt but it was like the translator had left and the feeling she had been so certain of was now in another language she didn’t understand. It didn’t matter. Magic had beckoned its hand and she had followed. It was a beginning – the door was ever so slightly ajar.

  SALT

  A Binders’ Circle is formed with the vine of the Closed Rose. May its thorns protect as they punish.

  Binders’ Magic, The Book of the Binders

  Anna began practising magic every day, like a thirst she could not quench. When Aunt was out she played the piano – assigning different knots to different keys – until she could manage several basic tunes. She learnt how to draw a marble to herself with a Heave Knot until it came to her every time and she could spin it in circles. She took the bulb out of her lamp and lit it up, unknotting a cord in a burst of energy. She’d been so ecstatic the first time she’d managed it that she’d run around her room and Aunt had come knocking. With the feeling of magic running through her she wondered what she’d been so afraid of – it lifted the fears from her heart, released the knots in her mind, made her feel powerful in the face of all her powerlessness. She whispered the secret she was afraid to admit into her nanta bag:

  I never want to let it go.

  It was already January. Would she be Knotted by summer? Or did she really have a choice? Perhaps Aunt truly wanted the decision to be hers. Deep down Anna doubted it, but even so, if she was expected to make any kind of decision over her future, she had to understand her past. She would speak to Selene. If anyone knew any more about her parents’ death or the secrets Aunt might be hiding, it was she. A few days before returning to school Aunt agreed in her most threatening tone that she could spend Friday at Selene’s house, which was the ideal opportunity – not to mention a whole evening of unlimited coven activities. Anna was desperate to see her friends; it had been so long – she just hoped she could prove herself to them, at last.

  She’d been so excited arriving back on Wednesday, she’d forgotten school’s cruelties. She was met with a notice-board of mock exam times and panicked faces reviewing it nervously. She should have done more studying, but she’d been distracted …

  Then there was the chitter and the chatter. As she walked down the corridor towards her locker she could hear it – the holiday gossip being unfolded like paper, examined and refolded into something sharp, designed to puncture. Only now she was the target; she heard her name, felt the laughter.

  The whispers stopped suddenly. Anna spun round to find Attis approaching, onlookers temporarily silenced as they watched him pass. ‘Anna.’ He searched her face with something like concern. ‘You’ve had us worried.’

  ‘Worried for my safety, were you?’

  ‘No, your aunt’s. I thought you’d smoked her and done a runner.’ His face broke into a wide, uneven smile. Anna had forgotten just how contagious it could be.

  ‘It’s good to see you, Dr Everdell.’

  ‘It’s er – good – to see you too,’ she said, looking away.

  ‘Come on, we’ve got Mr Ramsden. I’m sure he’s missed me terribly over the holidays.’

  Anna shut her locker and made her way down the corridor with Attis, trying to ignore the stares that followed them. ‘Attis,’ she said uncomfortably. ‘I wanted to say thank you – for the music book.’

  ‘Oh, that old thing.’

  ‘Attis, really, it was so unexpected …’

  ‘Sorry I didn’t use the front door. Selene explained the balcony procedure to me.’

  ‘I mean if my aunt had caught you, you’d probably have been hanged from the balcony, but the book is really amazing. I’ve already recorded a bunch of songs and—’

  He wasn’t listening; he was peering at her closely, like a doctor assessing his patient. ‘You look different. What is it? Cut your hair? Pierced something? Changed your name?’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘I’ve done none of these things.’

  ‘I know, but I’m not joking about you looking different. Your eyes are brighter, like a beech leaf in sunlight. You’re still taking the tisane?’

  Anna nodded, her cheeks reddening.

  ‘It’s working!’ He beamed. ‘Want to try out your magic on Ramsden? I had some good ideas over Christmas.’

  ‘Attis … no. No.’

  When Anna entered the common room at lunchtime something came hurtling towards her. She was almost tackled off her feet. ‘Anna!’ Rowan released her from the hug. She was with Manda. ‘Is it really you? What in thirteen dark moons happened? Are you OK? You weren’t really locked away though, were you? Effie said you were but you know how she likes to exaggerate.’ Anna’s look must have disturbed Rowan because her voice turned sober. ‘You weren’t, were you?’

  ‘No,’ said Anna, trying to sound casual, ‘Aunt was just mad is all. I was heavily grounded.’

  ‘I swear by the maiden, mother and crone, I’d like to sock that aunt of yours.’

  Anna laughed. ‘I’d love to see that.’

  ‘We really missed you.’ Manda gave her a hug in an uncharacteristic display of affection.

  ‘I’ve missed you all too – you have no idea.’

  ‘Well, you look good,’ said Rowan. ‘Did you do something? You look different.’

  ‘Nope,’ said Anna.

  ‘Someone’s been skiving.’

  Anna turned to find Effie. She didn’t know if Aunt was right about her – if Effie was leading her into doom and despair, if she could be trusted – but as their smiles met, her doubts faded. It was one of Effie’s true smiles.

  ‘Good to have you back. Selene told me what the bitch was doing to you. She’s a lunatic, Anna. We’ve got to get you away from there.’

  ‘I know,’ said Anna, surprised to find she meant it.

  They took a seat at their usual table in the corner. Anna cast a few glances around the common room and found half the room watching them. ‘OK, why has everyone been staring all day?’

  The table went silent. Effie smiled faintly.

  ‘Well.’ Rowan chewed her cheek. ‘Everybody’s been talking about your exit from the party. Corinne kind of filmed it and Darcey’s made sure everyone’s seen it.’

  ‘Great,’ said Anna and then remembered. ‘But, Effie, you did magic. Darcey’s heel …’

  Effie laughed. ‘You think anyone has noticed that? They’re all far too distracted by the bit where you throw up on the lawn …’

  Anna groaned.

  ‘Well, everyone thinks Karim and I slept together at the party!
He hasn’t come out denying it either!’ Manda cried.

  ‘Why would he? Makes him look good,’ said Effie.

  ‘Well, it makes me look bad. I’m saving myself for marriage, you all know that. Do you know how many people have signed up to Bible Study this term? One! The others have presumably decided I’m not fit to run it any more.’

  Effie laughed.

  ‘As usual Effie is taking this all very seriously.’

  ‘All I can see is that you guys now have a reputation. A month ago you were walking vacuums.’

  ‘I didn’t want this kind of reputation.’

  ‘Are we talking about Manda’s threesome?’ said Attis, sitting down beside them. ‘I heard it was steamy, literally. You guys did it in the shower? How did you all fit?’

  ‘We didn’t do it anywhere!’ Manda protested loudly, drawing looks from the adjacent table. ‘If anyone had a threesome at that party, it was you.’

  ‘I can neither confirm nor deny anything.’

  Anna remembered Attis in bed with two giggling girls. She glared at him. ‘Why is no one talking about Attis and Peter’s fight? Attis punched him, surely that’s bigger news.’

  Attis laughed fondly at the recollection.

  ‘Because no one cares when men fight, only women,’ said Effie. ‘And all this means is we’ve got everyone’s attention now. The Dark Moon is rising.’

  ‘But how are we going to do any magic now Anna’s been caught by her Stepford Aunt?’ said Rowan.

  ‘About that …’ Anna smiled and so did Effie, in a way that implied she knew already. Anna explained her new agreement with Aunt. ‘So now we’ll have the freedom to do whatever we like.’ Anna watched Effie’s smile widen and added, ‘Within reason.’

  Rowan stood up. ‘Well, this calls for a celebration! Sod it, I’m going to get some bloody tart.’